Raunch feminism

[imomus]

I love sex and eroticism. But I don't love the lewd choreography of raunch, and I particularly don't like the current Western ideology that raunch is a form of empowerment. Ariel Levy, in her interesting new book Female Chauvinist Pigs, calls this ideology "raunch feminism":

"Our popular culture," says the New York Times, paraphrasing Levy, "has embraced a model of female sexuality that comes straight from pornography and strip clubs, in which the woman's job is to excite and titillate — to perform for men. According to Levy, women have bought into this by altering their bodies surgically and cosmetically, and—more insidiously—by confusing sexual power with power, so that embracing this caricaturish form of sexuality becomes, in their minds, a perverse kind of feminism."

When I think about the reasons I reject both raunch and the idea that raunch is a form of feminism, I have to admit that they relate to class. Raunch as choreography emerges from working class strip bars, cheap Western porn tapes, sexist rap videos. It confuses sex with the sex industry, and sexiness with pimping and whoring. It also confuses all sex with dick sex: its main move is the thrust, and its main facial expression the rock-guitar-solo "gurn". There's a whole other thesis in which I accuse raunch of being the rockism of sexuality, and rail once more against the cabaret of empowerment unleashed on the world by the "Chicks with Dicks", Peaches and her ilk. And there's the "moronic irony" line, in which I accuse raunch feminism of being a performance inside quotation marks in which ambivalence about the choreography of raunch is acted out, underwritten by the insurance policy of "oh, we're just being ironic". Moronic irony lets the other side win by allowing us to ape its moves without reaping its profits (which, in the case of the porn industry, are considerable).

My main objection (apart from the visceral aesthetic objection) to raunch feminism is this. Feminism as a project has two sides: the dismantling of patriarchy, and the empowerment of women. Raunch feminism proposes that women can be "empowered" without dismantling patriarchy... in fact, by embracing "the male gaze" entirely.

In an interview with Salon, Ariel Levy says: "In this new formulation of raunch feminism, stripping is as valuable to elevating womankind as gaining an education or supporting rape victims. Throwing a party where women grind against each other in their underwear while fully clothed men watch them is suddenly part of the same project as marching on Washington for reproductive rights."

If you want to see the ideology of raunch feminism—the idea that women can achieve empowerment without bothering to dismantle the male-centric values of patriarchy— in action, you just have to turn to an article in last week's Sunday Times. The article ran in the Style section which, from the URL, you'll notice the Sunday Times groups as a "women's interest" (presumably on the assumption that only men are reading the politics and economics sections of the paper). "Tokyo is still the most mind-melting city on the planet, but, as Jessica Brinton reports, its radical fashion, sexual bravura and cultural weirdness are finally beginning to liberate its women". And there we have it, the usual idiotic, cliched Western take on Japanese women. They are "behind" Western women, diminutive, cute, squeaky-voiced and "submissive" creatures who are only now beginning to catch up thanks to... well, thanks to raunch.

"Japan may be one of the most patriarchal, male-dominated countries in the world," says Brinton, "yet top of last year’s Japanese bestseller list was a novel by the young Japanese female writer Hitomi Kanehara, called Snakes and Earrings. The story was about a young girl obsessed with extreme body piercing, tattoos and violent S&M." The implication here is that being obsessed with self-injury is a radical blow against patriarchy rather than its internalisation, its utter penetration of a woman's mind and body.

Japan is conservative, says Brinton, "a country where females are still not allowed to ascend to the throne. The 1960s and its feminist revolution never happened there." Wow, so feminism was all about allowing every country to have its own Queen Elizabeth II! Who knew? Brinton continues with her catalogue of "feminist" developments in Japan: male hairdressers are now trained to flirt with their female customers! And there's something we might call 'equal-opportunity objectification' going on: "We all know about hostess bars, the men’s pleasure domes that hit the big time during the 1980s economic boom. Now there are host bars too, for Japan’s rich and independent-minded women."

Inevitably, the Sunday Times gets around to the old prostitution-as-empowerment line: "The Japanese are the mad professors of consumer desire, and Shibuya girls — female teenagers who treat this place like their playground — are the most brand-savvy of all. They congregate inside the auditory bedlam of the Shibuya department store 109. Or outside McDonald’s, where they occasionally pick up older men for a few hundred yen (the extra cash goes towards the latest Chanel handbag). Aggressive, self-empowered and sexy, they dress as they want — from orange tans, razor-sharp stilettoes and microskirts, through Victoriana to extreme punk with pink nail varnish — shop as they want, and behave exactly as they want."

Woooh! Yeaaaaaah! How much for thirty minutes? Raunch feminism, you rock!

Comments

[deerscare.livejournal.com]

hey i agree with you here... when "raunch feminism" gets political (ie. highly sexed political slogans during election times such as "lick bush in 2004" etc.) my friend apropos refers to it as "Vagina Feminism". ive been noticing it as a gradually increasing trend since riot grrl times (like when kathleen hannah was into writing SLUT across her stotmach - it was much more aggressive and less male-gaze oriented but still highly centered around "reclaiming" sexuality in a way that glossed over or completely ignored certain problems with sex/the sex industry).

anyway, though i consider myself a feminist i've had difficulty relating to any specific movements, especially 3rd wave and onward (mainly because of this kind of thing).

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I think a lot comes down to this word "empowerment". It's a word which, like "reform" or "liberalisation", has come to mean precisely the opposite of what it originally meant.

Does empowerment mean tapping into a power that already exists, or devising a new form of power? In other words, does it involve conforming to the way things are, or preparing a future in which different values come to power?

[deerscare.livejournal.com]

well i guess the thing is, depending on the individual it could mean either... maybe pragmatically it should be a bit of both. and feminism should be at least 50% a personal thing. if someone else gathers strength in their gender and sexuality through this "raunch feminism" model, then i can't really chide them or decide for them whether or not that strength is valid. i think the problem is that (patriarchal) society at large embraces this, and cannot differenciate between a woman who is acting as a passive part of the sex industry machine, and one who is doing this to reclaim and/or empower.

[chuckdarwin.livejournal.com]

I fail to see an instance where a woman could use raunch feminism as a means to reclaim and/or empower.

[deerscare.livejournal.com]

do you really get to decide that for someone else? i may not agree with it, and i can't come up with an instance either, but i certainly don't want to nullify someone else's beliefs and convictions. especially a minority group, in a systemic way.

[chuckdarwin.livejournal.com]

Well-put; I am not trying to make decisions for anyone. I can see that people might rationalise slutty behaviour as 'empowering'; i.e.: Mom didn't get to act like a whore at the mall, but I can!

self-fulfilling prophecy.

[talentshow.livejournal.com]

With a closed off attitude like that, I fail to imagine any woman who HAS used her sexuality as a form of empowerment would share her experience with you.

I know plenty.

by all means

[chuckdarwin.livejournal.com]

Please, educate me.

Re: by all means

[talentshow.livejournal.com]

Joani Blank. Founded Good Vibrations, a women-friendly sex shop that focuses on sex education, openness and profit shares with workers.

Ducky DooLittle. Former peep-show girl who learned to get over her shyness working the booths of Times Square. now a world famous sex educator, scientist, comedienne and women's advocate.

Toys in Babeland. Another women-friendly sex shop that takes care of workers and clients.

Annie Sprinkle.
Carol Queen.
Candida Royalle.
Susie Bright.
any number of women working in the burlesque revival.

I don't know what to do when someone demands I educate them, particularly when they're coming from an unfriendly "that can't possibly be true, because I can't imagine it to be so" way. You can google all of those names for more information, and others you can find books by. Some may yield more helpful background information than others. I know many women who first felt their power as a result of their sexuality and sexual experiences, but that's personal information. I wouldn't share my experiences, let alone theirs, in any forum I can't control and where random men are demanding information of me. Our lives are not your potential educational experience.

Re: by all means

[chuckdarwin.livejournal.com]

Running asex shop is more of a commercial pursuit, and not exactly what imomus was on about (IMO). I seem to recall that most of the famous brothels in NV are run by women, as well. How is profiting from the sex industry dismantling the Patriarchy, again?

I wouldn't call the burlesque revival Raunch. It's closer to actual Dance, really.

Re: by all means

[talentshow.livejournal.com]

Porn is a commercial pursuit.
Considering that porn is the ONLY business in which women tend to make more money than men at equal levels of the business, and that in the United States women are paid less than 70% of what equally qualified men make, economics cannot be separated from this debate. When women make more money, they can work fewer hours and have more time for themselves, whether they want to stay at home and raise kids, go to school, work on their art, buy a home and have time to see the inside of it while they're paying off the mortgage.

Both of the sex shops I mentioned were started by women who were creating a women-friendly environment (unheard of at the time). Putting power into the hands of female customers gave a lot of those women confidence they hadn't had before. These women gave others the ability for sexual self-realization in their own homes, without being subject to the male gaze -- unless they wanted to invite it in. That's as feminist a pursuit as I can imagine.

I go to a lot of burlesque performances, and NYC is the capital. It IS raunch, often with a message. Some of the very best performers on the scene today, from NYC, London, Detroit, Las Vegas and elsewhere are not particularly good dancers. Dancing is nice, but not at all necessary to being a great performer.

It seems to me that you're trying to negate any sense of power women derive from their sexuality, or de-sexualize the things women do that you decide have artistic merit -- which burlesque has (if it's done right), but these things are not mutually exclusive.

Just because you don't get it, doesn't mean women in the sex industry who feel empowered by their sexuality should be invalidated.

Re: by all means

[azzy23.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure about all of the women you listed, but both Annie Sprinkle and Candida Royalle persued their own ideas after realizing they were being exploited, not liberated.

Re: by all means

[talentshow.livejournal.com]

So being taken advantage of as an introduction to something automatically negates any positivity and empowerment one feels when they do similar work for themselves?

I was exploited and taken advantage of as a base-level corporate employee when I was working my way through school. Does that mean I'm a victim if I decide to do similar work, but for myself and on my own terms? That logic doesn't sit well with me.

Re: by all means

[azzy23.livejournal.com]

No. Being taken advantage of frequently leads one to insight, when they're grasped the truth of their situation. The positive comes around the other side, when they take control of their situation, and use it to improve and better themselves and others. The exploitation is bad, the result can sometimes be good. Annie Sprinkle has a segment in her biographical herstory of porn where she talks about willingly doing a rape scene... and it getting too real. She thought it was liberated, probably, but found that it wasn't, and it changed the type of porn she did from then on.

The problem with the idea of negative empowerment, though, and I think this applies to your own mentioned work experience... for every 1 person that pulls out, or finds balance and empowerment... untold numbers rot. They never reach any safety, or enlightenment, and they'll never be equal. At your job, your choice is what makes you an employee, and not a schill. The caliber of the individual carries more weight, I think. I believe equality isn't based on caliber, though. *shrug*

Re: by all means

[subtechnique.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't share my experiences, let alone theirs, in any forum I can't control and where random men are demanding information of me. Our lives are not your potential educational experience.

==========

Everyone's life is a "potential educational experience". This is why novels (and other forms of art) are possible and, in exceptional cases, as illuminating as a million well crafted sociological studies.


Speaking of experiences...

It's been mine that whenever this topic comes up -- and Levy's book has brought it quite decisively to the surface in certain circles -- a predictable drama unfolds: someone asserts that Levy's offtrack, that what she calls "raunch culture" or "raunch feminism" can, in fact, be empowering for many women.

Someone else disagrees and asks for examples. The presentation of examples is quickly followed by a declaration of not needing to "justify" or "explain myself" effectively ending continued discussion.

This seems like an impossible subject to discuss without a mixture of defensiveness, disdain, misunderstanding, moralism and other signal to noise problems getting in the way.